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>Damn it. 

I have been staving it off for weeks, but it has finally caught me - fever. I felt it starting about half way through the day, but toward the end it was in full swing. Fevers are a bit weird with me, as I can still operate "okay" even with a relatively high one, but I am far from my best and my concentration doesn't hold for very long, which is worse now in the last couple years. Still, I *try* to do something whilst with a fever, because I believe it useful to take the opportunity to act under different conditions and see what is possible. 

> I don't push too hard.


![1000042673.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/23xLBHpFHwhQ2rDZJ5oZrHDWvbn5MbRQyLGtRY7tguacjHDSWQ5bFZm6CmqrVGoExpi8b.jpg)

But, when I have a fever I tend to write a little differently, or perhaps different kinds of thoughts boil to the surface and escape through my pores as beads of sweat. I have postponed a couple things for tomorrow morning so I can sleep in a bit, but I also have some other things that I don't want to postpone, as it will just make my life much harder toward the end of the week. 

>Lesser of two evils.

The fever when I checked wasn't too high yet and sitting at 37.5 (99.5F) but I can feel it climbing. I am "good" up until around 39 (102F), then it starts to get a bit iffy. At around 40 (104F) I won't do anything, though I have been known to write - which can be interesting.

All in all, this is not a bad time to have a half day off, or more if I really feel I need it, as it is the start of the team quarter and due to the tasks on my table, I am for once waiting for other people to hand me some material before I can move on too far. However, this cuts into my planning and development time for what I must do when that stuff arrives. 

> Should I think about work while sick?

Why not? It isn't like it is time wasted, nor do I have more important or useful things to think about, so I may as well do what I can whilst I can - "make hay" as they say, though I don't think the sun is shining at the moment. Instead, I can do some mental prep work, maintenance work, get my thoughts aligned so that when ready, I can hit the ground running. And of course, in between, have a bit of a rest too, and just chill.

For me at least, I find that the benefit of "taking the time off" is not worth the cost of doing so. Sitting in front of the TV doesn't make me any less sick than thinking about something that has some future benefit for me, or others. "Time off" sick, is not quality time anyway.

I am rarely ill like this these days, though I do think that I have been getting more flus and fevers the last few years. I don't believe it is because I hid away from Covid though, because I didn't, so it is more likely just that my body is in a declining condition. 

>Life.

Though I am hoping to slow the drop. I have been consistently going to the gym and eating a "fair bit" better (far from good enough), but it is a process and I have a long way to go. Mostly, my gym workouts are a mix of deadlifts and hip thrusts, as well as a bit of lower-back strengthening. I don't do any direct upper-body movements, because I don't really need to build more size or strength there, and the weights I am lifting for the legs is enough to keep it maintained at the very least. Though, I am still pretty careful that I don't lift too heavy, as I am still a bit "sensitive" to having another stroke. 

I like working out again, though I am still not motivated to actually do it still. It is strange. I am *forcing* myself to go there every time, and *forcing* myself to lift a weight, and there is still no flow state to it. 

>I miss flow.

I don't think I have had an experience of slow state since the stroke, which I put down to having to consciously think and act all the time. I can't be "out of my head" because if I am, there is just blankness, no movement, no thought, just dark. It isn't Zen, it is void. There is no intuition in that state, just a nothingness. I can even choose to observe the nothingness, which is kind of off-putting in some way, because it doesn't feel strange, it doesn't fill me with fear, it doesn't feel good - it doesn't feel *anything.*

But as soon as I do start thinking, all the little pains clamor for attention first and I have to block them out of the stream so that I can focus on what needs to be done instead. The moment we "pay attention" to our surroundings, we create a problem, because there is *far too much* to actually take in, so it is actually a process of exclusion and focus, not full awareness of the entire set of conditions. What moment are you living?

>Think about it for a while.

I was talking to a psychologist the other day about being "present" and explained that in my view, if we truly live the moment, we are actually continuously dead, because a moment is a point in time, not a distance in time. There is no movement in that point as it has no start and end and when there is no movement, there is only death. When people talk about "living the moment" they are actually changing the definition of the word to describe the experience between two points in time, somewhere there is space to have awareness, somewhere there is movement. This means that they aren't actually living the moment, because if they were, they would have no awareness of it and be continuously dead. When they did come back to time, they would have no recollection of the experience.

>And on that thought...

Perhaps it is time I took a poorly defined moment and had a rest.

How are my fevered thoughts? 

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


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